From Lesson Plan to Learning Plan: An Introduction to the Inquiry Learning Plan

The ubiquitous availability of information requires a shift in the role of teachers and librarians from just delivering content to helping students find, create, and share information, as well as accessing tools to help them organize and track their progress.

THE INQUIRY LEARNING PLAN

To accommodate this shift, Meg Donhauser has created an Inquiry Learning Plan (ILP) inspired by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s Understanding by Design framework (2005). In this article, we will introduce the ILP, and in six subsequent articles, we will dig into each of the important components from questioning techniques to creating an environment of inquiry in the classroom.

The ILP is designed so that students can experience the inquiry process and guide their own learning. After Meg used the ILP in her classroom the first time, a team of educators (classroom teachers and the school librarian) began to consider what students should be able to do as a result of this experience and settled upon these two outcomes:

• Ask and answer questions by synthesizing appropriate texts as well as personal and peer experiences.
• Assess their strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan to improve on those skills.

The ILP creates opportunities for students to build skills, such as self-direction, adaptability, and a tolerance for ambiguity, in addition to critical skills like reading, communication, and collaboration. They experience and begin to get comfortable with the discomfort of learning. As one 12th grade student explained,

I have never been in a class where I sort of was a teacher to myself. I got to choose what I read, what I studied, what I focused on, what I was able to do as work, and what my guidelines were.... This process of gaining responsibility was the most important part of my journey.

In classrooms where the teacher makes most of the decisions, this is not likely. Students should have opportunities to be both the educator and the educated. A factor that makes this possible is that students have access to more information than ever before, so the educator’s role is more to help them access, analyze, and apply it.

This role change has made a difference for librarians as well. No longer are they sitting behind desks ready to find the information the students need (though they can certainly still do that). Instead, they are working side-by-side with teachers, using their knowledge of information behavior to assist teachers in handing over the reins of learning to the students.

By the end of the process, students have discovered their own knowledge and are almost wholly responsible for the skills they have developed. As an 11th grade student explained, “This class was very hard work but yet I learned a whole lot because I got to study and learn my way.... You get to find out how you work and most importantly how you learn.” They also become better at assessing their own skills/content knowledge, which should serve them well in the future. As a result, students think more broadly about education, both on a personal and institutional level, rather than disregarding it because it seems antiquated to them. One of the main things we learned is that education can’t be the “sage on the stage” model anymore; we can’t exist in totally separate spaces. We hope that the ILP will help students realize that they can be their own teachers, a skill they will actually use for the rest of their lives, and that teachers can be mentors who help them to gain the skills to do this.

The ILP is a living document, one that is constantly being updated as students read and research, practice skills, complete reflections, and collaborate with other learners. It allows teachers to provide specific, ongoing feedback and students to develop skills in areas that are necessary to that individual. Jackie, a 10th grader, said that her experience with the ILP let her “engineer an experience to make [her] learn best, rather than learn how someone else wants [her] to.” For teachers who would like their students to take control of their education, the ILP offers both the freedom and structure to guide their students to success.

THE ILP: A LIVING DOCUMENT

Now that we’ve explained why the ILP was created and some of the benefits that we’ve seen using it, let’s take a look at each of its components.

Section One: The Starting Point: The plan is divided into four sections; the first is where students outline the materials they will be studying. This serves as a sort of table of contents for the ILP since these will be the texts of the unit. Depending on the course being taught, this first section could be organized thematically, by literary movement or genre, or another unifying factor. The teacher will need to determine ahead of time the requirements for this section, depending on course needs.

Section Two: What I Will Learn: The next aspect serves as a plan for the students’ discovery and mastery. Here students will list essential and guiding questions and will choose their standards for the unit. The questions can be developed before, after, or in conjunction with choosing texts, but it is imperative that students have a record of their questions not only to share with the teacher and peers, but also to help them focus their inquiry. Furthermore, both the way that texts inform questions and the way that questions invite new texts will be different for each student, so the inquiry process should remain flexible.

Section Three: Student Growth: Just as students have taken control over what they choose to study, this plan allows them to direct how they are going to learn new information and practice the standards. To that end, students design and complete rounds of activities and reflections that show growth in terms of skills; through the activities, students also demonstrate that they are actively trying to answer the essential and guiding questions of the unit.

Section Four: So What?: The “So What?” final project is the students’ attempt to extend what they’ve learned beyond the classroom. The discussion of this final step takes place when the concept of reflections is introduced to help students think about the deeper meanings and larger implications of their essential questions. This is a shift from backwards design, where students are working towards a predetermined outcome; we have learned that the questions and skills must dictate the final product. Using the reflections, students will determine the most compelling take-away of the unit or course. It may be an answer to the essential question or a skill that the student feels is necessary for success; it will be as individualized as the rest of the learning plan.

When teachers and librarians put their heads, skills, and passions together, exciting opportunities for learning can happen. In our next article, we’ll discuss how students choose texts and develop questions.